The arrival of a new head football coach
causes a reaction amongst a fan base that doesn’t seem to occur in many other
sports. Usually stepping into a
situation that needs fixing, the new hire is treated like a football-Messiah;
he can make no mistakes. Then the team
starts playing games and decisions get questioned, personnel criticized, and
expectations return to earth.

For Gary Andersen, despite building nearly
universal goodwill with dominating performances to open the season, and adding
to it in how he handled the debacle that was the end of the Arizona State game,
chinks in the armor started to show after the Ohio State loss. A loss to Northwestern would put the Badgers
at a 3-3 mark – identical to the Razorbacks – halfway through the season.
Naysayers will most definitely emerge should the Badgers stumble against the
Wildcats.

Before his departure, Bielema made numerous
references to this 2013 team potentially being the best one he ever had as head
coach. So what gives? Even with a win
Saturday the Badgers at 4-2 will be an unremarkable 4-2 and looking up at a
berth in the B1G Championship game. Why
can’t the coach that many people feel the Badgers “traded up” when he was hired
make a bigger splash in his debut season in Madison?

The answer is simple. It’s a matter of square pegs and round
holes. Andersen is working with an
inherited roster with skill sets that don’t always match how he wants his team
to play. What may have worked for
Bielema may not work for Gary Andersen and what he wants to do with his
team. As a result, Andersen is forced to
work around the limitations of his players as best he can to sometimes less
than stellar results.

The squarest peg of them all is the most
visible player on the team: the quarterback.
Right from his introductory press conference, Andersen has stated his
preference for a mobile quarterback who can threaten a defense with both his
arm and his legs. Joel Stave is not that
player. Andersen gets an average passer (or pick your own ‘not great but not
awful’ adjective here) who can’t make up for his shortcomings with his feet. Based on his track record, Andersen will not
allow that to continue for long.

The wide receiving corps is similarly
limiting to his offense. Andersen’s
offenses in Logan were predicated on stretching defenses by employing multiple
receivers who could stretch their opponents vertically, allowing his
quarterback and running backs more space to work against less crowded defensive
fronts. Outside of Jared Abbrederis,
this team appears to lack receivers who can challenge defenses in any
meaningful fashion.

Andersen’s defense has limitations as well. Andersen wants his defense pressuring the
offense up front while physical defensive backs bottle up receivers in tight
man coverage. While the veteran-laden
front seven has shown the ability to get to the quarterback at times. The secondary has been challenged.

Matching up in single coverage has been a
tough adjustment for players recruited for their suitability to keep the play
in front of them in zone coverage. The
need was such that Andersen converted Tanner McEvoy – brought in as a
quarterback – into a safety to inject needed physicality and playmaking ability
into the secondary.

The team’s shortcomings were visible in both
losses thus far in the season. The
rushing attack was largely bottled up by Ohio State. The offense, forced out of its comfort zone
committed numerous procedural penalties, costing the team points and a
potential victory. In Tempe, the
secondary was no match for Arizona State’s receivers in single coverage,
committing multiple pass interference penalties to avoid giving up huge gains. The passing game and secondary were known
issues before the season started, but scheme has pushed this issue to the
forefront even more.

Despite these limitations, Badger fans should
be heartened by Andersen’s early efforts to reshape his roster. Andersen brought in a handful of recruits
after his hire in December. Recruited
exclusively by the new staff, the aforementioned McEvoy, along with Jakarrie
Washington, Leon Jacobs, and T.J. Reynard are making contributions early in
their Wisconsin careers after leapfrogging veteran players on the roster.

With the 2014 recruiting cycle well under
way, the Badgers have the potential to make an even bigger splash. When considering the long term future of the
Badgers, more important than the game against Northwestern is the contest for
the hearts and minds of some highly talented teenagers on the Badger sideline
Saturday.

Andersen is bringing in what is arguably the
most gifted group of recruits to ever visit Madison in a single weekend. Hosting a half dozen players rated at the
four star level or better – highlighted by one of the nation’s highest rated
running backs – the new staff is looking to upgrade the talent on the team to a
heights heretofore unseen.

Enjoy the rest of the 2013 season. Highlighting the limitations of the current
team or focusing on recruits who won’t make an impact on the field for a year
or more isn’t meant to take attention away from what remains on this year’s
docket. That’s not the point here. This team looks very much like a nine win
team that cruises into a late December bowl; that should be enjoyed and
appreciated in its own right. The goal
is only to point out that what’s being watched on the field isn’t a Gary
Andersen finished product.

All signs are encouraging. Even with its issues, the on the field
product is still of a high quality. Based on the memory of so many recent close
defeats, if nothing else Badger fans should be encouraged with Andersen has
coached in these critical situations. He
appears to have avoided the problem of burning through his timeouts, something
that plagued his predecessor in his time in Madison. If that problem follows Bielema to the SEC,
it will be interesting to see what they write about him on those message boards
then.